Der Leopard - Remastered Edition

This film is a labor of love for Visconti, the passing of the old aristocracy in 19th century Sicily. He expresses the beauty of that way of life and the melancholy of its passing. He himself was of the highest Italian aristocracy. Burt Lancaster and indeed the entire casting is perfection. Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale are both gorgeous and inhabit their roles perfectly, as do all the supporting players. And the dialogue taken from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's masterpiece of the same name is deftly handled. The costumes and locations are stunning and the score by Nino Rota is evocative and moving without being overbearing. A masterpiece.

A very beautiful release. The transfer of the original release is one of the finest restorations to be seen. The special features are already mentioned on this page so there is no need to repeat. As with all film, each to their own. Me? I loved it. Going into watching it for the first time i was preparing myself for a long and slow hog, but that never happend. Despite the 3 hour running time you never feel that this is going on for too long. I never looked at a clock to see how much longer the movie had to go.The production was beautiful. With Burt Lancaster in the film, the producers had Americal money. You see where every cent went. The costumes looked real, if a dress looked like it was made of leather, than it was. Silk was silk and not some cheap imitation. Being filmed in Italy, there was plenty of real life mensions to shoot in, no need to once again with cheap imitations. This film looks beautiful because everything that was shot was beautiful. (sorry about the pretensiousness)Italy is renouned for great directiors, but when it comes to actors, that's a different story. However, for this film we are assured that the actors included are more than excellent, and so is their performances. The only thing that lets it down is the dubbing. Any fans of Italian cinema knows what a mean. An example is Lancesters dubbing. He speaks in English but his voiced is dubbed in Italian (I'm talking about he unedited version) so all the mouth flaps feels fake. But after a while you get over it.If you have an opportunity please check out the film. If you decide to purchse the movie do not go past The Criterion Collection version, especially the Blu-ray, if you have the hardware.Enjoy

First, on the quality of the blu-ray release, this is without a doubt the finest film transfer I have ever seen. When you first insert the disk what you see is breathtaking: images so sharp and clear that they seem like HD video shot just yesterday, assuming you have a high resolution monitor. It is almost too sharp, in the sense that it can seem like a live video of a film being shot. Although a bit pricey, it is worth purchasing just for the transfer quality alone, to demo your equipment.As for the film itself, be forewarned that not a lot happens. I would advise brushing up a bit on Italian 19th century history first, if not reading the novel. The plot, such as it is, has been summarized by others so I'll pass over that. In any case this a film you watch for atmosphere and details. The best films are generally those that remain faithful to their source material. This film, like Gone With the Wind, does not disappoint in that respect. It is largely faithful to Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, except for two short chapters at the end of the book that deal with the death of the prince and the fate of his offspring, and a battle scene that did not appear in the book. Curiously it is a somewhat long film based upon a relatively short novel. At first you may giggle at the Italian coming from Burt Lancaster's character (and you should view the Italian version with subtitles, which is far superior to the dubbed American version), but you quickly get used to it due to his powerful performance. Despite being made by a professed Marxist (although an aristocrat), this film is a relative rarity in portraying conservatives in a favorable light. This is the kind of film that you will want to watch more than once, which makes it a worthwhile purchase. I recommend it.

Beauty and the Beasts is a must have for any nature enthusiasts collection. The Leopard is one of my most favorite big cats, I like the solitary lifestyle that the Leopard lives. I also like the unique coloration of the Leopards fur pattern. This movie is about a Leopard cub that grows up with his mother, and then becomes an adult that fends for himself. This documentary has very good footage as well.Beauty and the Beasts is about a wart hog family, that grows up in the nearby vicinity, along sides the Leopard family that never cross paths until one night. The wart hog mother sends a rejection notice, to her grown piglets in the middle of the night, to go out into the world to fend for themselves, and they must find shelter in the African night, to avoid all kinds of hungry predators.And that's where the Beauty encounters the Beast, the wart hog squeals like a rat caught in a rat trap, when the Leopard first attacks the wart hog to eat it. Along comes a young Hyena to compete, and fight with the Leopard for the right to eat the wart hog. The narration is excellently done by the departed James Coburn, star of the 1960's movies; Are Man Flint, and In like Flint. This documentary can be found on VHS, and DVD, but not on Blue-ray, but can be up-converted to look even better if put it into your Blue-ray player. I purchased this movie on VHS, before Blue-ray became a reality, and was some-what satisfied then. Now it can look even better with higher definition through up-conversion. Even I'm in the market to repurchase this documentary on DVD, VHS is not the way to go today.

Tried reading the book. Kept falling asleep. Movie wasn’t much better.

The film is absolutely beautiful, a true masterpiece all round. Visconti really was a master of his art. Never has decay (in this case that of the Sicilian aristocracy) looked so alluring. The cast is excellent, the costumes and sets are beautiful, the Sicilian filming locations are stunning and atmospheric, and Nino Rota's score rounds it all off to perfection. I loved every minute of it.The film being one of those multinational productions with stars from various countries and speaking different languages, you're going to get a dubbed version no matter which DVD you buy. I opted for a budget edition - the German released Sueddeutsche Zeitung DVD (bottom half of cover is yellow with the number 1 on it). It has a German and an Italian audio track and optional German subtitles. When played with German audio, there are numerous passages with Italian dialogue which are subtitled in German. Sometimes the switch takes place in the middle of a sentence, but oddly it didn't bother me much. I presume this may be caused by the inclusion of footage that was cut from the original German release. The run time of the film is 178 minutes. The aspect ratio is 16:9 widescreen. Picture and sound quality is very nice. No English audio or subtitle option. For me the available language options worked, hence the five star rating. Iif you're looking for English audio or subtitles stay away from this particular version.

A bit of a marathon to watch, but Burt Lancaster is compelling as the Prince living through an age of massive change, whilst also coming to terns with his aging. This film gave me an insight into Italian culture and history, and reminded me of how well they used to make films - ie without a lot of background music and a lot of cutting from one scene to another. You felt you were in the room with the characters as they sat in their gorgeous salons having wonderfully educated and charming conversations. I have not yet read the book, but heard about it because Rick Stein mentioned it was a favourite of his when he was on some cookery tour of Sicily. It does have an extremely long ball scene, (45 mins) so that you do actually feel you are there, and beginning to get a bit bored and tired, like some of the characters at the end of the evening, but you can always fast forward through that.

THE LEOPARD, THE BOOK and HISTORYMaybe the most famous yet not the most beautiful of his Visconti's masterpieces. Yet still one of them. The Leopard is based on a great book that in Italy is still considered not only a fundamental text to understand what went wrong with Italian war of Indipendence, but also to understand how the traditional power and the power of the tradition can survive to change just exploiting it, in order to stay on top of the situation.Maybe you could apply this idea on what happened in the States (and not only there) after the 60ies revolution, and find an explanation on how nothing really changed.VISCONTIVisconti is an enlightened aristocratic intellectual, who looks down at his people, his country and his class misery, with a sense of decadence that is that of his class going down but also that of the new Nation losing immediately any fresh energy brought by the war for justice and independence: because, after all the bloodshed, nothing will really change.He manages to balance personal and intimate stories with History and Destiny inevitably unfolding and stepping over family relationship and private feelings. But he does not succeed in it in the same amazing way he did with his absolute masterpiece "Senso".Still this is a great film and one of those blockbuster that Italian were able to make without lowering too much the artistic side and the political views behind them (see also 1900 or Once upon a time in the West).THE BLU RAY AND OTHER EDITIONSThe blu ray is really good, although now there is a new italian edition directly transfered in 4k from the newly restored film, so maybe that should be even better than this one.And it also includes a very nice documentary about the producer behind the film (and many others), directed by Oscar winning Giuseppe Tornatore (New Cinema Paradiso)

The high definition digitally remastered quality of the film is excellent, and the interview with Claudia Cardinale really interesting. It is the long 3-hour version and rather 'baggy' compared with the version which first appeared in the UK I think. But the most irritating thing is the subtitle quality - they come and go, sometimes half a sentence, sometimes none at all, on my Panasonic Viera 55" TV. What is the BFI doing issuing this? - Visconti's Conversation Piece streamed from Amazon Prime has excellent subtitles, all visible and readable.

I bought this DVD after as I wanted to see the film again without focussing on the bottom quarter of the TV screen watching the English subtitles. The information on Amazon clearly stated that this version was DUBBED in English. When it arrived the information on the box stated Italian dialogue with English subtitles. No mention of it being dubbed in English - so I did not unwrap it, but sent it back immediately. Disappointed at this disinformation from Amazon. On further research I found that only the film version for the American market (Region1) is dubbed in English, and is shorter in duration. I cannot find an English dialogue version for Region 2.Watch out for this if you intend to buy!!!